Vampires never drink wine
by Ainsel3
Summary: In a world where vampires have evolved against the natural law, humans are nothing but dominated creatures. The hierarchical scale is simple, and this can't be changed. Hardly ever.
1. prologue

**The vampires are now a figure absolutely abused, but honestly I can say that I loved them long before the outbreak of the vampires-mania.**

**This fiction is dedicated to a friend of mine who loves the vampires and the Percy/Nico as I do.**

**I love her even though she is suffering from a rare disease: she reads everything and appreciates all, but when she tries to comment on a fiction she risks to die for a horrible and painful death. Never give up: we will find a cure!**

**This is just the prologue, but I'll update soon with the first chapter.**

* * *

The man walked quietly, his gait was quiet and relaxed as if he had never known the taste of fear.

His blond hair, thick and slightly wavy, took silvery reflections in the moon's rays. A beautiful colour obtained with some dye, Percy judged, a little touch of vanity that probably that night would cost too dear.

Percy glanced briefly the woman next to him, and he wasn't at all surprised when he noticed that she was following every move of man: her eyes was cold, the eyes of a predator who has just seen the prey more appetizing.

Percy knew his aunt too well not to recognize that the elusive beauty of this man was her favourite type of food. He was aware that all of them had specific preferences, but despite this he had always felt uncomfortable when someone would ask him what, between a virgin's blood and that of a boy on the threshold of puberty, had a sweeter taste.

- You want me to catch it for you?

Maria turned slowly to look at him, and how every time Percy thought that the crimson light in her eyes wasn't out of tune with the sweetness of her features.

A lady covered in blood; beautiful and deadly as the purest rose.

Percy considered useless everything that came from Hades' mouth, thinking that he was only interested in the aesthetics of his statements, but only in this case the boy was forced to agree with the description that he loved to give of Maria.

She never moved his eyes from the man, now stopped at the road's edge.

- I don't need you to do it for me.

Percy nodded briefly. After watched her when, accompanied by a barely perceptible air movement, she appeared at the side of man. He jerked violently, surprised, but then relaxed immediately after seeing her.

- It's strange that I have not noticed before a beautiful woman like you, when did you arrive? - he asked, staring at her with interest brash and vulgar.

Percy felt annoyed, but Maria gently returned his smile.

- It's not the right question - she whispered, wrapping an arm around his neck and putting her other hand on his chest. - You should be interested in where we're going now.

The man was disoriented for a few moments, feeling now that her whole figure radiated something abnormal, and when he shooting word his tone had lost all initial security. With his arms inert at his sides he seemed afraid to even touch her, and her breath on his neck was enough to make him tremble.

- I... I should go home - he stammered.

- Oh, no. Don't be evil.

His feeble protest turned into a strangled cry when a stabbing pain caught him in the jugular, after which he was able to articulate only the confused gurgling.

Percy joined them when the man was now silent and was lying on the road. The boy looked at him with critical expression, touching his arm just to make sure he was really dead.

- Really aunt, because you don't take into account the idea of going to a restaurant like everybody else? - Percy sighed.

She refused his proposal with a dismissive wave of the hand.

- I hate those places, they are so vulgar - she categorically stated.

Percy raised his eyes to heaven, but he chose not to argue.

He couldn't find anything objectionable in a places where vampires could order human beings still alive, with the blood perfectly fresh, and already captured by those who were paid to do it.

But after all Percy knew that his aunt, as well as his mother Sally, weren't always lived in that society that he knew as the only possible. When he was a child Percy had heard stories about vampires forced to live in the dark, hidden from the world behind the pages of fears and popular legends; vampires who could create their own kind only donating their blood to a human.

Sometimes Percy found it hard to believe, but those two women to whom he was closely linked were the last specimens created that way. Not the firsts, but equally important because they had received blood from the firsts.

Maria had just twenty when Hades had torn her life to give her something much more beautiful and terrifying together, and Sally had barely eighteen when she had followed the same fate at Poseidon's hands. Since he was born Percy had seen both of them only a few times, and he was intimately annoyed that they were respected as the most ancient and noble of their race.

To him they were the emblem of a past reality that Percy simply couldn't conceive.

His awareness began when, for reasons still unknown, the vampires' nature had suffered a slow metamorphosis, adapting to the rules of a world that otherwise they could only command in the shadows.

The day's light even if unpleasant was no longer fatal, and the strongest vampires had acquired the ability to tolerate it perfectly.

From there, get the domain had been as easy as playing with puppets.

Weaker, more stupid and so limited; dominate humans had seemed like a logical, even boring consequence of the machine that had been set in motion.

- You would not have wanted to use him to make a beautiful baby?

Percy had spoken in this way just to change the subject, so he was surprised for the chilling glance with which she shushed him.

- Don't be silly - she said harshly.

Percy said no more, masking his perplexity with a reckless disregard for the incident.

The last and most terrifying change, the most serious affront to nature itself, was the opportunities for vampire women to procreate and conceive children.

However, for some obscure and capricious reason the male vampires didn't have the capacity to contribute at this act. Then the women were obliged to resort to humans, and later the indignity of having been touched by similar creatures was washed with the killing of the same as soon as the conception was successful.

Percy had discovered this during his third birthday after he innocently asked where he was his daddy and having received the curt reply: "he is rotting under the ground with the worms".

Now Percy was eighteen years old, and he had long since lost all interest in the issue.

He sighed again, putting his hands in the coat pockets.

- Let's go home? - he suggested.

- You don't eat anything? You must follow a proper diet while you're under my care. You don't want your mother to worry, right?

Percy was tempted to reveal to Maria that, actually, Sally was worried for her.

His mother had asked him to go to live temporarily with his aunt because she thought that Maria was grieved after that her only daughter, Bianca, had decided to live alone in another country. However Percy couldn't think that Maria - so strong, ruthless and deadly - was able to experience a feeling like the pain.

- Tonight I'm not hungry - Percy replied calmly.

Maria looked at him severely

- You eat too little - scolded him. - I begin to suspect that you go in those horrid restaurants in secret.

Percy considered the possibility of admit diplomatically that sometimes he was really gone to eat there, but the prospect of having to listen the endless monologue about the superiority of their family - _you know perfectly well who are Poseidon and Hades, no Percy?_ - made him desist.

- No aunt, you know I would never do that.

Judging by her gaze Maria wasn't at all convinced by his answer, but she began to walk without another word. Percy followed her immediately, grateful for this peaceful conclusion.

* * *

In a few minutes they reached their house: a colonial-style residence in the old town, with red brick walls covered with climbing plants. Eager only to put an end to that night Percy tried to enter, but she restrained him before he could lower the handle.

- Honey, you shouldn't open the door by yourself. We have servants for this - she said.

Percy couldn't suppress a sigh, giving her an ironic look.

- I thought it was a race between you old vampires - he observed. - More you are important and more you have human servants at your disposal. But, if I'm not mistaken, you're not the first.

Maria put on an offense expression, and Percy considered very unlucky the woman who chose that moment to welcome them.

- Lady, I was sure I heard a rumour! - she said, bowing her head respectfully.

Maria approached her so quickly that the servant flinched; but instead of detaching her head of equity, as Percy had been convinced she would do, Maria just surpass her without another look.

The woman gasped in search of air, leaning against the wall.

- What's in your hand?

Percy's voice seemed to shake her. She bowed her head again, and hastened to give him the white envelope that she had clenched spasmodically between his fingers.

- It... it's a letter for you, sir - the woman mumbled. - I'm so sorry, I should have to deliver it immediately.

- That's it, you can withdraw.

She was glad to obey, and left the room with a speed that the boy judged notable.

Once alone Percy studied the letter with making critical, frowning in front of the eye-catching red wax seal that was imprinted on the back. Percy easily recognized that the sender was Ares: the only person he knew crazy enough to choose as a symbol of his family a stylized eagle with close in its beak a severed and bleeding hand.

Percy opened it, intrigued.

_First of all: This isn't an invitation, it's an order._

_Apollo and Luke are already here, and I expect you to come as soon as possible._

_Of course, Maria must come with you. In her honour I bought the quality food in the most expensive stores in the city, and I'm anxious to know if her picky palate will approve my choice._

_P.S. she shouldn't read this letter._

_P.P.S. connected to the first note. Burn it._

Percy snorted in reading that conclusion, managing almost to admire the perseverance with which Ares insisted so brazenly with Maria.

Ares had less than Percy's current age of the first time that he had asked her to marry him, and even now that he was 24 years old he continued undaunted to accumulate waste on top of waste.

Percy was sure that Maria would never have accepted the invitation, and he too was undecided on what to do. They were now gone several years since, after declaring that the city was not the right environment for a real vampire, Ares had chosen to give up everything to go and live in an isolated castle in Cornwall.

Since then Percy had received several invitations, but every time the proposal's negative aspects had brought him to refuse. The trip wouldn't have lasted less than four or five days, and spend all that time in a carriage would have been exhausting for him.

Also, now, Percy found deeply polluting to imagine Ares, Apollo and Luke in the same place.

- What are you reading?

- Ares invites us to his castle - Percy replied, not showing signs of surprise when the woman's arms encircled his shoulders.

- He doesn't give up?

- So it seems.

Maria turned away by his nephew, going to sit on the red velvet chair placed in front of the large stone fireplace.

- Of course I will not go - she said bored, bending a foot under the leg and leaving the other to swing idly. - What are you going to do?

Percy stared at the letter in his hands, without answering. He stayed deep in thought for a few minutes, then shrugged.

- I have nothing better to do - he concluded. - This could be an interesting diversion. After all, no one knows when it will happen something interesting

At that moment he had spoken without any real attention, driven only by boredom, and he couldn't imagine how much those words might be true.


	2. arrival at the castle

**In this chapter, second or first officer depending on your point of view, appear almost all the main characters. Almost.**

**The series of PJO is full of characters and to me like them all, so it was difficult to make a selection of those to be used in this story; beyond, of course, Nico and Percy.**

**Thank you all for your comments and for entering the prologue as a favourite, I hope that this chapter may also like.**

* * *

The castle's silhouette loomed mighty on the heights in which it was built: an ancient building and a little crooked with its multitudes of dark towers placed at different heights, like a toothless smile.

"Today my Lord is in a good mood."

Percy turned slowly toward the man who had welcomed him on his arrival: skinny, with thinning dark hair and the uncertain age of a person that seems already old in his youth.

" How do you know how Ares feels? " Percy asked.

He respectfully told him to look up, and following his gaze Percy noticed that, in the highest tower, there was a fireplace in the shape of a dragon's head from which came lazily a white smoke. Percy looked at it puzzled, not understanding.

"So what?"

"My Lord turns on the fireplace each morning" the man explained quietly. "When his mood is serene the smoke will be light in colour, if unfortunately he didn't have a good awakening the smoke will have dark shades."

In another moment Percy would have wasted some of his time to comment on the dubious sanity behind a custom like that, but now he was too sore, tired and irritated from the long journey.

"I'll have to bring my bags alone?" he asked.

When he realized that his tone was sounded indolent and spoiled as that of his aunt Percy felt a rush of natural shame, but this found no basis on which to take root. He was talking to a human being, insignificant as all his fellows, and Percy had always known that it was unthinkable to feel something different from indifference towards such creatures

The man, meanwhile, had winced and he immediately bowed his head.

"Pardon me, sir, I'll take care of your baggage immediately" he said quickly. "My son will carry them in your room."

Percy nodded slightly, shifting his attention on the person who was heading briskly towards them.

"We were beginning to worry that you were lost! "

While Ares was beating a blow on his shoulder, Percy observed him in silence. He had always associated a strong masculinity with Ares' figure: the hard features of his handsome face, the furor of his turbulent nature which made burning his eyes. But now Percy noticed annoyed that Ares had become even taller since their last meeting.

Normally the vampires' growth would stop with the achievement of thirty years. But it wasn't unusual exceptions of arrests tardy or early, and Percy had always had the feeling that Ares belonged to the latter category. Or at least, considering that at twenty-four Ares was taller than him by a good head, Percy hoped so for his pride's sake.

Ares looked around with obvious impatience.

"Where is Maria?" he asked.

Percy judged painful his hopeful tone, but this wasn't enough to give him the desire to strike up an excuse with which to make less bitter the truth.

"She didn't want to come" he said. "Just as the first time, and the one even before. Really Ares, still you're surprised? "

When Percy had spoken that way he had been prepared psychologically to an exaggerated reaction, so didn't react when Ares grabbed him roughly by the shoulders.

"She has another lover?" he shouted.

"Ares... my aunt's life isn't something that concerns me. "

"So it's true!"

"No, it isn't what…"

"Admit it! Tell me immediately, I'm going to kill that bastard!"

Percy began to feel more and more dangerously irritated, already tired from the journey and not at all excited to worsen the situation with those screams in the ears, but before he could say or do anything a high-pitched voice filled the air.

"There is a problem in the living room!"

Percy turned immediately toward the voice that had just interrupted their. Despite some years had passed he immediately recognized the little girl that Ares had taken home some time ago. It wasn't changed almost nothing in her pretty face, and her eyes had the same, hypnotic shade of blue that he remembered.

However Percy looked puzzled the black velvet dress that she wore, cinched at the waist with a bow tied on her back and curled just above the knee; the same, ancient lace that adorned the hem was also used to tie her long dark hair combed into two tails on the sides of the head.

Percy wondered if this clothing was the result of Ares' taste, and he looked suspiciously at the porcelain doll she held in her arms; dressed the same way.

"Thalia, you're very grown up" Percy greeted her pleasantly.

"Oh, yes" Ares agreed immediately, suddenly excited "Last month she ate her first human being."

Percy's eyes widened, staying really speechless.

"She has already awakened her thirst for blood?" he asked incredulously. "Her teeth are erupted through the gum?"

Ares nodded, revealing an obvious pride.

"At just ten years old" he pointed out. "And she killed him with such class!"

Percy preferred not to comment on this last statement, but the gesture with which Thalia hugged the doll to her chest appeared to him now decidedly disturbing. Percy didn't share Ares' enthusiasm for the affair, but he was forced to admit that a vampire still immature, a child, already in possession of the aggressive instincts of his species was remarkable.

Percy had started to feel the need to drink blood, the rite of passage that makes a vampire officially adult, only at the beginning of adolescence, and he was considered a early subject.

Suddenly, the nostalgia that Percy had tried looking Thalia became a nuisance.

"What would be the problem you mentioned?" he asked, eager to change the subject as soon as possible.

"Apollo" the girl said, speaking directly to Ares.

She doesn't add anything, but he didn't seem to need it. Ares put his hand on Thalia's head and motioned for Percy to follow him, then walked toward the castle with an exasperated expression.

Thalia hopped behind him, and even Percy was intrigued enough to obey willingly.

* * *

The castle had been built according to those that Percy considered the classics stereotypes of the genre, idealized through books during childhood: long dark corridors, dimly lit by torches hung along the stone walls, high ceilings and huge rooms; elegantly intimidating environments.

They entered a room separated from the living room by a large glass door decorated, depicting a hunting scene. The first thing that struck Percy was the acrid smell of blood, so penetrating that he had to do violence on himself to suppress the urge to thirst that had taken him.

Breathing hard Percy tried to focus his attention on the scene in front of him, hoping it was interesting enough to distract him. He opened his eyes, that he hadn't even realized he had closed, and looked at the blond boy sitting with elegance from dozens of corpses. Speechless. Percy observed Apollo's tapered fingers that cut cleanly through the throat of the last man still alive.

The man let out a strangled gasp when the knife's blade cut off his skin, but after a few moments he cocked his head to one side, inert. Apollo smiled; then took a goblet with both hands and held it under the gash, so that the blood would fall inside.

"Apollo, God damn it! Why do you have to turn this place into a slaughterhouse at every meal?" Ares yelled furiously.

Apollo finished calmly to collect every last drop of blood, then shaked the man's head to make sure the body was dried up. When he decreed that the meal was finished Apollo stood up, putting a strand of hair behind his ear.

"You know, I hate to drink directly from their body" he said.

"Instead I like it, their skin is so hot" Thalia spoke up candidly.

Percy realized that she had gone to sit on the chest of one of the bodies in the room, robust enough to allow her to be comfortable. Also Ares noticed her movement, and immediately grabbed her.

"When a man is dead you never have to get close to him, I have already explained" he scolded her.

Thalia nodded so condescending, and it was so obvious her happiness when she stayed in Ares' arms, that Percy judged her behaviour perfectly calculated; as if she had acted with the express purpose of being embraced.

Apollo meanwhile had turned toward the door, and when he saw Percy his blue eyes twinkled with delight.

"Percy! How long you been here?"

"Since your meal's beginning" he said. Percy had implicitly accused Apollo because he hadn't immediately noticed his arrival, but the boy didn't notice.

Apollo straightened his shirt collar - a gesture that Percy found unnecessary, considering that the garment was so stained with blood that it had nothing more of its original white colour - and gave him a friendly smile with unnaturally vermilion lips. His lean physique was highlighted by the tight leather pants and the shirt, Percy had few doubts about this, wasn't elegantly unbuttoned to mere chance.

"Good trip?" Apollo asked cheerfully.

"No" Percy replied. "Actually, now I'd rather go to rest in my room."

"Already? But you haven't met Luke!" Apollo protested. "I think he is in the library, or in the yard to play at the skeet shooting with some humans.

"I will survive even without seeing him. If you'll excuse me, I will come down in time for dinner." Percy said.

Apollo tried to insist again, disappointed, but Ares nodded with a nod of the head.

"Second floor, third door from the stairs" he said. "Your luggage should be there already."

Percy thanked him, for once with total sincerity.

Percy walked out of the hall still bloodstained and climbed the long and majestic stone stairway, feeling within himself a growing concern. When he opened the door to his room his mood was now dark, and Percy had to struggle not to think that he would do much better to stay at home. He thought that Ares was too aggressive and Thalia too unpredictable, and undoubtedly it was uncomfortable for him to be around to Apollo when the blond boy had been his wet dream for years. But what Percy had never really been able to bear was the contemptuous smile that Luke reserved to the world.

After waived to positive thinking, Percy decreed that accept that invitation was pure masochism; and awareness didn't help.

With the benefit of hindsight Percy would have believed that his bad temper was the reason if, for the first time in his life, he hadn't perceived immediately an human's presence. But at that moment he was caught totally off guard when he collided with the boy who was leaving the room; sending him to the ground.

Percy thought for a second that simply he wasn't a human, thus justifying what happened, but his appearance left little room for doubt. Percy then tried to study his face, and even if this was concealed by a few dishevelled hair's locks, dark as a raven's wing, Percy managed to catch a glimpse delicate features.

"Stand up."

That was a peremptory order, pronounced with an impulsiveness that Percy had rarely experienced, and also the boy immediately understood this. Clearly reluctant, careful not to look at him, after a few moments he obeyed.

Percy was a little intrigued by that behaviour, unusual for a servant, but by the time he was more concerned to observe his appearance. Percy considered that the boy's age had to be between of fourteen and sixteen years old, but his body was too puny because it was possible to give a more precise judgment.

"You're too thin and pale, I don't like" Percy asserted.

Percy had always said everything he thought without worrying about the other people's reactions, and all those who know him had explained at least once that this was also the right attitude, so he was amazed by the sourness with which the boy replied.

"I came to bring your bags" he said. "I'm sorry if I'm so horrible, I hope I haven't traumatized you."

Usually if a human had dared to speak to him in that tone he would have died before he could understand what happened, but now Percy was able only to stare at the boy in silence. His eyes were large and deep as Percy had seen previously, two black pools that gave him a shiver of pleasure.

"What's your name?"

"I thought that the name of someone like me didn't matter" the kid replied, defensively.

"No, I am not the habit of conversing with my dinner" Percy saw him stiffen for his response, and grinned internally. "And that means that I don't want to kill you."

"Glad to hear it..."

Percy felt a flicker of genuine fun, but he was careful not to let it leak out from his face no emotion other than annoyance. He didn't need to remember his mother's teachings to know that it was inconceivable for a vampire find amusing something said by a human being.

"I'm not used to wait when I ask something" Percy said, as coolly as possible.

Although reluctantly the boy forced himself to respond, knowing that the silence would have been useless and harmful.

"Nico" muttered, shifting his gaze to the ground.

" Well" Percy approved. He turned that name on his tongue, and he liked the taste that he felt. "Now lifts your face."

" ... Why? "

Nico had heard ad nausea his parents' admonitions about the attitude to be adopted with a vampire. Obedience and silence. Nothing more.

However Nico couldn't help but respond to that boy - no, that _vampire_ - never seen before.

It was crazy, absurd and senseless, but Nico had instinctively hatched the certainty that he wasn't a danger. Nico had observed his green eyes so intense and, faster than the reason, this idea was born.

But this conviction wavered at the moment when Percy came to his side with a lightning movement, putting a hand on Nico's hair and tightening the grip to force him to raise the head.

"The only reason is that I have commanded you to do so."

Nico shuddered when he heard that whisper in his ear, so hot and paralyzing the same time, but even with his heart beating frantically he didn't try to escape. Percy frowned for his lack of reaction, because he perceived in Nico's stillness no the terror but an implicit challenge.

"Aren't you afraid of me?"

" I should, sir?"

Without answering Percy touched Nico's neck with the lips, licking his skin with the tongue before use the teeth to make a slight pressure.

"You should. Silly, little human."

Nico instinctively clenched his eyes; expecting a pain that, however, was not. Instead he was pushed away, then a angry voice made him shudder.

"Percy, I would ask you not to imitate Apollo's performance."

Nico opened his eyes snapped. Ares was on the threshold of the room: the arms folded across his chest and an irritated expression on his face.

Nico stifled a moan when he understood Ares' words, knowing that a _performance_ for him meant an unknown number of dead bodies to burn. He wanted to hope that his mother might give that duty to someone else, but from years Nico was resigned to the unhealthy consciousness that she considered an incentive when he was wounded by a task.

Meanwhile, Percy shrugged nonchalantly.

"Don't worry, I was just playing" he said.

Nico was shocked by that answer, but before he could reply indignantly he remembered that the vampire " Percy, if that was his name " was always someone to whom he was forced to give respect. Nico bit his lip to hold back any inappropriate comment, and at least tried to leave the room without being noticed. But he managed to do just a few steps that Percy appeared again in front of him, blocking the road.

"I don't remember that I have granted you permission to leave"

Nico blushed angrily at hearing those words. He knew he should bow his head and ask for forgiveness, but the knowledge that he couldn't do otherwise increased his fidgetiness. However, the mortification was what burned more; while Nico despised his ridiculous thought that a vampire might be nice to him. Gentile. Nico repeated that word in anger, feeling his mind filled with this feeling.

Without thinking of the consequences, Nico slapped abruptly the hand with which Percy was touching his face.

"I never asked for your permission!" he replied.

Nico rejoiced for Percy's stunned expression, but he wasn't so happy when Ares shook a hand around his neck and lifted him off the ground.

"How dare you respond this way, you little..."

"Ares _leaves_ him. So you risk to kill him."

Ares glanced sideways at Percy, annoyed by his interference.

"This would be my intention."

"You can't kill him for a wrong word!"

"No? And for what reason?

"This is one of the first rules that we have learned" Percy said shortly, although he couldn't explain the reason for the nervousness that was scrolling under his skin. "The food should never be wasted."

"A wren like him wouldn't be enough neither for breakfast." Ares snorted.

"Some vampires prefer a light meal."

"I've never heard before this bullshit. This is Maria's new diet?"

Percy opened his mouth to reply, but he realized that while they were discussing about their eating habits Nico was getting paler every moment that passed.

So, without another word, Percy snatched him from Ares' hands. Then Percy pushed Nico to sit on the bed, looking at him as he coughed in search of air.

"Are you okay?"

"I have never been better."

His hoarse voice wasn't exactly reassuring, but Percy decided that if Nico he was able to be sarcastic this meant that he wasn't dying. Percy knew that Ares was staring at him with blazing eyes , but he ignored his indignation and his blame.

Honestly Percy would have to admit to try a ridiculous, instinctive sense of responsibility towards the young boy. With a more affordable alternative, Percy said to himself that he wasn't willing to lose a entertainment's source that could make his stay in that place less unbearable than expected.


	3. bored predators

**I have no announcements or special notices about this chapter. So, simply, I hope you enjoy reading.**

**Thanks, of course, to all those who have commented and added the fiction as a favourite ^^**

* * *

Since he could remember, since his life's early years Nico had always been forced to interact with vampires.

He couldn't go back to a time without the instinctive repulsion, fear and involuntary attraction that those creatures exerted on him. Similarly, his role in that reality had always been perfectly clear in his eyes: a weak human that vampires would forget at the speed of a breath, worthy to stay alive only to serve them.

Totally, pathetically useless.

"Nico, the meat is burning!"

The alarmed voice behind him startled him, but before Nico could open his mouth he was abruptly pushed aside. Nico looked anxiously the rapid gestures with which the girl who had just taken his place in front of the oven was trying to save the lunch, and he returned to breathe only after she let out a sigh of relief. Nevertheless the woman continued to launch imprecations against him, but Nico was so used that her insults slid over him like water.

Small, blonde and overweight: Susan was a person with whom he had grown up in all those years spent at Ares' castle. And was an old story her tenacious and very little concealed dislike towards him.

"What did you have in your head, you idiot? " the girl attacked him, after further lowered the flame to slow cooking. "You wanted to burn everything?"

"Of course not" Nico replied on the defensive. "I'm sorry, okay? I... I was just thinking."

She shot him a glare, ignoring his apology as if he had not spoken, and brandished against him a ladle. Nico stepped back cautiously, not doubting that Susan could have hit him, but the girl was more interested in screaming.

"We are cooking George, the groom" she reminded him. "I imagine that a little worm like you who sold himself to the vampires don't consider this important, but I don't want to burn the man's remains I knew!"

"No, you know that is not true!" Nico exclaimed frustrated.

He was tired of repeating again and again that he had nothing to do with vampires, at least nothing that depended on his will. Nico realized that Thalia with him was affable and cheerful, as also that Luke, a frequent guest at the castle, revealed a twisted interest to study his behaviour; but both were incomprehensible for him. Initially, however, Nico had tried to defend himself from the other servants' accusations who pointed to him as a traitor, at least explaining that he had no favourable treatment compared to them, but now he was simply sick of saying words that no one was interested in hearing.

Susan watched Nico while he shook his head slightly and looked away, with an obvious dropout attitude, then she narrowed her eyes.

"I look forward to the day when it will be your turn to be inside this pot" she said sharply. "If you do a little fatter, Ares would certainly be happy. "

Despite the indifference that Nico was convinced to try, he felt hurt by that comment too cruel even for the girl's normal standards. Didn't help him the certainty that probably all the other humans of the castle shared that thought, and he ended up reacting with equal malevolence.

"So that's why the diameter of your thighs is increasing day by day? " Nico replied. "A touching devotion to your master."

The girl blushed with anger, clearly offended. Nico felt a mixture of satisfaction and feelings of guilt, but he decided almost immediately for the first when he remembered that Susan's ruddy appearance depended mainly on the fact that she, taking advantage of her role as a cook, often was taking food from the other people's rations. Nico was also convinced that Susan was particularly attentive to remove from his plate all the food that she could without leave this completely empty.

The kid felt a sudden anger toward the woman, but before he could say anything he was silenced by the person who entered at that time.

"Lady Thalia, you shouldn't enter in the kitchens!" Susan immediately exclaimed.

The little girl crossed her arms behind her back, a confused expression on her faces. Nico noticed that she had her hair loose and slightly dishevelled, as if she went stealthily in easement's area before that her personal maid could comb her.

"Why?" Thalia asked innocently.

"Lord Ares will be angry with you" Susan replied, trying not to tremble. "Please, now you come back to your rooms."

Nico felt a barely perceptible movement of air, and as soon as he turned his head he saw that Thalia had appeared to the woman's side. While Susan stepped back, suddenly so pale that her skin looked ashen, Thalia sat down on the table to be at the same height.

"You mean he will be angry with _you_, right?" she asked, swinging her legs.

"I... yes, of course" Susan stammered. "Excuse me, I didn't..."

"But I don't want to go away."

The woman opened her mouth without making a sound, clearly desperate as she searched for right words to say. In spite of all Nico tried to help her, but he couldn't even move that Thalia spoke again.

"I'm hungry" she said. Her smile would have been nice in any other child; but looking Thalia, Nico thought of a cat playing maliciously with a mouse already fallen into the trap.

Meanwhile Susan had continued to back away, but when she bumped into the cabinet behind her she was forced to stop. Initially her eyes darted around the room looking for an escape; but then, with a courage that Nico admired, Susan lifted her gaze and looked at Thalia.

"I'll cook immediately, what do you prefer?" She asked. Her voice was plotting and she was aware that this was a desperate attempt, but she didn't budge.

"I really, really hungry."

"I'll cook in a short time, Miss" Susan assured her.

"But I'm hungry _now_."

Nico watched as Susan's resolute expression collapsed like if it were made of sand, and when Thalia' smile became fierce he couldn't do anything but lower the head. The woman's agonizing cry made him shiver.

He instinctively closed his eyes,, but he avoided plug his ears with the hands to cling to a stubborn form of pride.

Even when the silence fell again Nico didn't dare to open their eyes, already nauseated by the sweet smell of the blood that was spreading in the air. His hatred of the blood was always co-existed with his particularly acute sense of smell, able to perceive the fall of even a single drop, and Nico considered this ironic combination how the irrefutable proof of his bad luck.

"Nico?"

He felt Thalia's hand rest gently on his shoulder.

Although reluctant the boy looked at her: a fake little girl, pretty and smiling with unnaturally red lips and fangs protruding obscenely from her lips. Nico wanted to feel disgust and fear, but he simply couldn't hate her. She was Thalia, and even if Nico was aware of how this was done pathetic she was also the only creature in the castle who didn't hate him. Luke was too twisted because Nico could really understand what he felt, and Nico didn't want to think about that strange new vampire with green eyes.

"Are you satisfied now?"

Thalia nodded obediently, and began to swing her legs.

"Even though her blood had a bitter taste" she said contritely. "I prefer sweeter."

"This is the problem..."

"What?"

"No, forget it" he muttered.

Thalia tilted head, the typical move when she was ready to insist on being told what she wanted, and to prevent a gruelling interrogation Nico went to concentrate on the job of cleaning that had to be done.

He gave a quick glance at the woman's lifeless body, lying on the floor in a disorderly way, and he felt sick at the prospect of having to carry her out of the kitchen. Nico threw a dark look at Thalia, but the smile she gave him deprived him of all his ability to be angry. There was only fatigue, and with it the desire to go back to bed and not get up anymore.

Nico sighed and wondered how that day, dramatically just starting out, could deteriorate further.

* * *

Living with his mother and often with his aunt, for Percy had always meant to live in the name of the oldest traditions of which he often couldn't understand the meaning.

They could use the most luxurious restaurants, instead every night he was forced to follow the two women in search of prey still alive who they were adamantly determined to capture without the help of anyone.

Their bodies now tolerate the sun's rays, but ever since he was a child Percy had been strictly forbidden to leave his house during the day.

Maria called this "_real vampires' pride_". Percy, for the sake of peace, had always refrained from commenting.

"Percy! You have to wake up, come one!"

When a light's ray struck him in his face he put his arm over his eyes, but even with that protection he could hear them burn. He took a deep breath to calm himself, but this didn't help him to feel less irritated.

Percy had always believed that pander to her mother's whims wouldn't cause any real damage, and only at that moment, with Ares in front of the open window staring at him indignantly, he realized how much his body had become too accustomed to the darkness.

"Damn, Ares..." Percy hissed through clenched teeth. "Pull the curtains."

"It's almost lunchtime " he replied merciless, but consenting to his request after Percy darted him a murderous look.

"It's _only_ lunchtime."

Ares' expression became more openly frowning.

"When are you going to get out of that bed?" he researched.

Percy wanted to answer with a dramatic "when darkness will fall," but after a brief hesitation he decided that a joke is not worth the risk of a controversy. Instead he nodded vaguely before sinking his head into the pillow.

He could feel Ares' penetrating gaze, but after a few moments the man left the room without any further protests. If he had been more polished Percy would be suspicious for this abnormal surrender, but at that moment he simply chose to accept it with gratitude.

Percy slipped into a light doze for a time that he couldn't calculate, probably few minutes what seemed like long hours, until the mattress is tilted slightly under the weight of someone who had just sat down on the bed.

After a brief hesitation Percy decreed that should be Apollo, nor as robust as Ares or, of course, thin as Thalia. He was surprised that a person so exuberant had approached him in a discreet way, especially if Apollo had come in order to get him to wake up, but Percy was not going to open their eyes to unravel that mystery.

Or, at least, at first he believed it to be so.

They were both silent, even if Percy felt a undisguised tension in Apollo's breath, and this prolonged silence woke him up more than a loud noise. Percy deemed it too inexplicable that Apollo had sat quietly on the edge of the bed and was staring at him with hesitation; too much to ignore it.

"Apollo" sighed, pulling himself to sit. "Explain to me what you ...?"

Percy was silent, stunned, when instead of the blue eyes that he had expected to see he found himself staring at blacks eyes of a completely different person.

Nico quickly looked away.

"Ares... Lord Ares" he corrected himself unwillingly, "told me to come and wake you."

He didn't explain that he had hesitated because he didn't know how to do that job, but his embarrassed expression was eloquent.

Percy's first reaction was one of anger about that trick petty; perfectly aware that if Nico had come back with the news that he hadn't done his job, Ares would kill him. The second was of irritation at the thought that Ares regarded him seriously concerned about the fate of a human boy, but in the end Percy sighed and accepted that, after all, this was the truth. He wouldn't have exchanged Nico's head for a few hours of sleep, Ares had been right to realize this.

Meanwhile Nico stepped back warily, still less enthusiastic than before to be in that room, but Percy grabbed his wrist before he could really get away. Percy forced him to sit down again, but his grip wasn't painful.

"Stay here" he ordered.

"For what reason?" Nico investigated.

For a moment Percy was silenced by that question too blunt, but he roused himself almost immediately. He didn't say even to himself that simply he liked to have him near, and fell back on a half-truth that, Percy was sure of this, would have found her aunt's approval.

"To help me get dressed. From the way you act seems that this is the first time that you serve someone" he said calmly.

Percy had always been deeply contrary to this habit, instead worshiped by almost all the people he knew, reluctant to come dressed like he was a mannequin; but now he advanced this claim with ill-concealed expectation. He waited for a reaction, and found fully satisfactory the violent redness on Nico's face.

"I have to serve lunch" the boy said, refusing to look at him. "I'll send you a waitress."

Nico hadn't really hoped to be able to refuse with that ease, but he still felt frustrated when Percy's grip on his arm became firmer.

"I don't care a waitress, I said I want you."

Nico wasn't looking at his eyes, but he found impossible to ignore his voice.

He knew that any vampire could paralyze a human with only sound of his words, but he realized that this wasn't what Percy was doing. Percy was just talking to him how he could speak to a fellow, quiet and direct, and after a brief reflection Nico decreed impulsively that his special attractiveness was that strange cohesion of arrogance and modesty that emerged from his mode of expression.

Nico looked at Percy and thought he saw a nice guy who had been taught to be arrogant, but after having formulated this idea he scolded himself not to think of such nonsense.

"It's not my job " he replied, squaring his shoulders. " I repeat that I will call immediately someone more suitable.

Percy sighed, seemingly annoyed, but Nico saw a flicker of amusement in his eyes. He hadn't wanted to be funny, then he is bothered by this.

"Evidently there is a detail that you're still not able to understand" Percy said. "If I order you to do something, you have to run it without opening your mouth. If I want to eat, you have to cook. If I'm thirsty, you have to take water. If I order you to sleep with me, you stick in my bed in silence. If I tell you to punch me..."

"I will execute the last order without protest, I swear" Nico interrupted him, grinning for the side that Percy had inadvertently left open. "Can I do this now? Please?"

When Percy raised his arm Nico didn't try to dodge, ready for that reaction and convinced that a simple slap worth the satisfaction of that moment. But, contrary to his certainty, instead of hitting him Percy pulled him towards him with sudden violence.

"Don't play with me, little idiot."

Only when Percy's voice in his ear made him shiver Nico became really mindful that the boy had pushed him on the bed. Immediately he tried to get up, hoping that his heart's beating wasn't so noisy as it seemed to him, but Percy's body over him prevented him from even the smallest movement. After a few futile attempts Nico gave up, realist enough to understand that it would have been perfectly useless to insist.

However this impotence wounded him, and the discomfort became fury.

"Are you the only one who can play?" he snapped, ignoring the caution.

"Me?" Percy repeated, genuinely surprised. "What makes you think that I'm playing?"

Percy was careful not to change in any way his expression, but he was impressed by the look with which Nico stabbed him suddenly. Percy had always thought that he had a particularly restless light in his eyes, a spark burning, but now the flame was a pure fire impossible to ignore.

"Because that's what they always do the vampires!" Nico accused him angrily. "Actually, I can understand you. We are nothing but pathetic beings without force, it's normal that you feel like the gods that can kill us in a few moments. But the disgusting thing is that now you are no longer the predators who torture their trophy, but only the fat, bored cats who play listlessly with... with food already packed!"

The fury that had overwhelmed him at the beginning was progressively diminished,

and when this disappeared altogether Nico was left alone with the certainty that he had just dug his grave.

Intimately Nico still felt the instinctive and unreasonable certainty that Percy would never hurt him, but at that moment he wouldn't bet even a coin on this option.

However, while he was groped for one last, futile escape, Percy's laughter caught him off guard. Nico looked at him, his shoulders shook with laughter, and wondered seriously if he hadn't some mental problem.

Although Nico wouldn't never admit even to himself, he had tolerated Percy's annoying and often mocking attention even by virtue of the fact that the boy was so beautiful to take away his breath. But if he was now compelled to add the aggravating circumstance that Percy was also completely crazy, Nico wasn't so convinced that he could control the situation.

"What's so funny?" he ventured to ask.

Percy shook his head slightly, still in the throes of the last tremors that he was struggling to hold back.

"You just said the exact same things that my aunt says when she's in the mood for polemic against this squalid and corrupt society" he replied. "But she is a vampire. Instead if is a human like you to call himself "_canned food_" I don't know what to think."

"Could you appreciate my critical spirit" Nico suggested, caustic.

"Or your strong masochistic streak."

"Why should it be masochistic accept the truth?"

Percy gave him a sideways glance, as if he was deciding whether to take or not seriously his objection. Nico stubbornly maintained his gaze, almost no more remembering that they were lying in bed with Percy above him.

"See things for what they really are is the supreme act of self-harm" Percy replied softly, covering Nico's eyes with one hand. "You don't need to do so."

Nico was confused by that speech and by Percy's strange gesture, although this had again made his heart beat faster.

But, in reality, he had been disoriented by Percy from the first moment. The night before he had continued to think to their first meeting through the night, until his roommates hadn't threatened to throw him in the yard if he didn't stop tossing and turning in bed obsessively.

Nico had found maddening not being able to understand where was the boundary line between derision and interest, if then one really existed, but now he knew that in any case Percy had just passed each hypothetical border.

He was unnerved by the inability to see, but it was as if to make up for this sudden lack all other senses were heightened.

Percy's hand on his face was so cold that he shivered; as cold as Thalia's hand, but big enough to convey a strange sense of security. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Nico was hit by an overwhelming wave of nostalgia that brought him close to tears.

"What happens?" Percy asked, noticing the way he his breathing had become more laboured.

Nico grabbed him by the wrist, but didn't pressure. Only, he waited. Percy accepted his silent request, removing the hand from his eyes, and allowed Nico to look at him.

Nico gave him a long, carefully studying his eyes unexpectedly warm. He had never seen green eyes like that, he thought, and he barely suppressed the urge to raise his arm to touch Percy's face.

"I don't know... " he whispered, resentful. "But the fault is yours."

"You don't know what's wrong, but you know that I am the culprit?"

"That's right" Nico said. "It's one of those truths that I never wanted to see, but unfortunately this is just jumped in front of my eyes. As a cricket. Not a cute cricket that bring good luck; a bad, horrible insect of those who are crushed with stones."

At least intimately he had imagined a reaction like this, then Nico was unperturbed when Percy laughed for the second time in that day.

* * *

Ares had spent the last half hour glancing grim the door, responding with abrupt monosyllables to the Apollo's chatter that has always been particularly good at not grasp the tension in the air and not understand when it was appropriate to keep quiet.

Ares hadn't really believed that the human brat would have been able to wake Percy, and after this bland attempt he had sent Thalia for the same mission. Yet she too was slow to return, and Ares was beginning to lose patience.

"Cursing against the door will not help to get it open."

That mocking remark struck further his nerves, but the person who was stabbed by his look of fire continued to eat unperturbed.

"You want to look for Thalia, Luke?" Ares asked through clenched teeth.

"No."

"If Thalia hasn't been able to wake him, I think we should give up" Apollo interjected. "After all, if Percy prefers to get up later there are no problems."

"Absolutely not!" Ares replied. "He can't be so self-centered. In this house we have lunch at lunchtime, and he will have to adapt."

"This is a childish revenge against Maria and her umpteenth refusal?" Luke asked in a bored tone

Before Ares could respond in any way - _unkind_, judging from his furious expression - Thalia chose that moment to make her entrance into the hall. She was cheerful and apparently amused, but also alone.

"Why Percy is not with you?" Ares asked immediately.

Without answering the little girl walked quietly toward him, then held out her arms to make him understand that she wanted to be picked up. The man accepted her request, making her sit on his lap as is their custom.

"Where is Percy?" he asked again.

"He's doing strange things with Nico" Thalia explained quiet. "So I returned back without disturbing him."

"He was doing _what_?"

Thalia grabbed a skewer from Ares' plate and ate it in small bites, then she repeated with the same calm tone that Percy was doing strange things to bed.

On the table fell a stunned silence, while everyone tried to grasp the meaning of that cryptic statement. Apollo, probably due to the lack of desire to think about anything else, almost immediately opted out for that to which the rest of those present didn't want to think about.

"That's too bad, eh Luke?" he said, playing with a bloody lump on his plate. "Apparently Percy stole your toy."

Luke said nothing, leaving only leaked for a few moments an annoyed expression.

"I would like to first understand clearly what we are talking" he said coldly. "_Thalia_?"

"I've already said everything" she protested sulkily.

"Come down in the details, please."

"If I do it, you give me one of your poisons?" the little girl suggested, and her face lit up at the prospect. "The poison that stifles people!"

"Agree" Luke said through clenched teeth.

Considerably more well-disposed, Thalia planted her elbows on the table and leaned toward him.

"Percy was above" she said in a confidential tone. "And he seemed very amused."

"Above ...?"

"Lying in bed with Nico" she pointed out.

Ares could have sworn that Luke had gone pale, but his ashy complexion made this thought least fetched.

Personally Ares had no interest towards any type of activity that Percy had decided to undertake with an anonymous human in his service, but he was annoyed that this was diverting the general attention from a event more important.

"Do you remember what will happen tonight, right? " he investigated, taking advantage of the fact that Thalia had finished her story; stopped abruptly from Luke at the point where Percy was undressing and Nico was trying unsuccessfully to leave the room.

"A party for me!" she replied promptly. "Because today is the day in which Ares found me."

"Touching" Luke said, his voice venomous. "And how many of us are invited to celebrate this happy event?"

Ares shrugged with a look disinterested.

"I don't remember" he said.

Luke ran a hand through his hair, more and more frustrated, and thought about how many servants he could have killed to calm down. On the matter about Percy at that time he preferred to fly over, postponing this for a moment of greater diplomacy. The problem that instead Luke couldn't afford the luxury of setting aside was Ares' vague answer. Luke knew him well enough to know that this was to be interpreted as "all the families of vampires that I know. A hundred people or so. "

And all this to celebrate a brat dressed up like a stupid doll of other times that Ares had the brilliant idea to find in a woods many years ago.

Luke took a deep breath and he decreed that yes, maybe the blood of a dozen maids would have been enough to make him regain the composure.


End file.
